The purpose of this seminar is to bring history to life by exploring our personal—ancestors’, family members’, or our own—interactions with historical trends and events.
DESCRIPTION:
Remember the television series You Are There? In it we would see Walter Cronkite in a time warp reporting on great stories of the past—his interview with Mary Queen of Scots, for example, or the time he dodged bullets at Gettysburg. Our own brushes with history may not constitute such grand events, but they may bear witness to a piece of history worth remembering. In the end, the tales we will tell during this seminar may well adhere to form an unfinished, but unique American quilt. The moderator will schedule your selected story or you-are-there report chronologically to lend coherence to the larger historical context of unfolding events and thematic issues.
ROLE OF PARTICIPANTS: Participants will make a presentation on their own (or other family members’) selected brush with history. Who is your witness to history? When and where does the story occur? What is the story’s context? How might it have shaped the future—both personal and national?
RESOURCES:
There is no single resource for this seminar. History texts and internet articles may prove informative, as may genealogical research that some of us may have done.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: Nancy is a retired landscape architect, art enthusiast, and history buff. This seminar was inspired by her own family history, as well as by interest generated during a previous edition of You Are There (1.0).
